Why are rocks are configured before being loaded?

[austinliuigi]

I was reading over the source code and was just curious why config_hook is called before loading the plugin rather than after. Since it's called before, it needs to :packadd! before calling rocks_config.configure() which seems redundant, as lz.n calls :packadd during the load step regardless.

[mrcjkb]

Hey 👋

This is because it's more in line with Neovim's built-in :h initialization-startup.
Neovim sources your init.lua first, and then loads plugins later.

Typically, there are two types of plugins:

• Those that allow optional configuration before automatic initialization
• Those that force you to configure and initialize at the same time with a setup function

Requiring configuration after initialization would be a really bad idea (and I haven't seen anyone do it), because it would not work with Neovim's built-in loading mechanism (and there probably isn't a use case for it).

rocks-lazy.nvim's loading mechanisms occur after Neovim's initialization startup.
Calling packadd! with a bang (!) makes the Lua API¹ of non-luarocks plugins that are managed by rocks-git.nvim available on the runtimepath, without sourcing any plugin scripts.

Then, after configuration, packadd (without a bang) sources the plugin scripts.

You're right, the packadd! call is unnecessary for luarocks packages, because their Lua API is on the package.path/package.cpath already. But it's needed for non-luarocks packages managed by rocks-git.nvim.

See also: #4

Footnotes

1. which may be needed for configuration ↩

[austinliuigi]

Got it, thanks for the thorough response!